? New to Dining Plan not Disney

[beccaewert]

It is just me, dh and my 2 yr. old son coming to Disney the 1st week of May,...I haven't booked quite yet because I am having a hard time deciding what to do..

We have always stayed in the FW campground and cooked most of our meals and ate occasionally at the parks.

Because of the 4/3 deal at the value resorts its cheaper to stay in the hotel than it is to camp.....but the alternative is I can't cook most of our meals....I am trying to decide if its still cheaper to stay at the campground $1400...plus I would have to buy a weeks worth of food (its just us,...it wouldn't be too much..maybe 200 bucks) OR stay at a value resort with a dining plan...which is almost $2,000

Its only $200 less to do the QuickService Dining plan versus the Regular Dining plan....

In your opinions,...Because its just us, and our toddler,...is the quickservice better than the dining...or is the $200 more worth having the Regular dining?

Part of me still wants to camp in our pop-up because it still seems cheaper and I like the freedom the campground gives you, BUT I am gonna be 6 months preg. around time of the trip....so I don't know if the hotel would be easier on me....but my main concern is about the money....

Our bellies will be full and always have snacks if I cook at the campground
Is the DDP more trouble than its worth? It just sounds like alot more work & $.....than doing it myself?

Sorry for the long post....If you can't tell I really am kinda lost on this one

 

[kcashner]

We found that the dining plan gave us plenty of food--really more than needed. Your 2 year old will be free--if you eat at a buffet, he'll eat free. If you eat at a TS, he can share your food free, but you'll pay if you order separate food for him.

6 months pregnant and you want to camp and cook?????WHY????

Thoughts--if you eat at the Pepper Market at Coronado Springs, it counts as a CS. The food is excellent and plentiful. We found this to be one of the best CS choices at WDW. We choose the dining plan as a time to try out some of the more expensive, fancier restaurants that I probably wouldn't want to pay for otherwise.

Whether/which dining plan is a good deal depends on what/where you plan to eat. If you eat at character buffets, it is basically a "break even." IF you eat at Le Cellier, Les CHefs de France, etc. it is a really good value.

 

[SRUAlmn]

My suggestion is to stay at a value (Pop is our favorite!) and ditch the dining plan. When we travel, it's just my husband and myself. We are both decent sized eaters and the dining plan still costs more than we normally spend in a day on food (that's for the counter service plan, the regular plan is way more.) We rarely eat at sit down places because we just enjoy eating on the run and we don't like the structure of having ADRs and having to be at a certain place at a certain time. We have gone back through my journal from our last 4 trips and added up the cost of all of our food and snacks for those trips and all of them were cheaper than the cost of the dining plan. Hope that helps and let me know if you need more info.